This paper introduces the Small World model (Watts and Strogatz, Nature, 1998) into the theory of economic growth and investigates how increasing economic integration affects firm size and effciency, norm enforcement, and aggregate economic performance. When economic integration is low and local...

The paper presents the long-run equilibrium and development dynamics in the neoclassical growth model and a simple model of endogenous growth when property rights are absent. The results are compared to the outcome in a corresponding model economy with secure property rights. The main findings...

The paper analyses the long-run equilibrium and adjustment dynamics in models of economic growth where property rights are absent. A comparison with the standard models assesses the importance of property rights quantitatively. In the neoclassical growth model individuals arrive at a lower...

Successful economic development is usually characterized by two salient phenomena: industrialization and demographic transition. Chronologically both events happen so closely to each other that historians and economists alike suspect that they are interrelated. This paper develops a theory for...

During the World Cup 2006 Germany experienced a surge of revealed patriotism unseen so far after World War II. How can this unexpected and spontaneous change of social behavior be explained given that preference (for patriotism) are stable over time? This essay introduces and discusses three...

This paper provides a unified growth theory, i.e. a model that explains the very long-run economic and demographic development path of industrialized economies, stretching from the pre-industrial era to present-day and beyond. Making strict use of Malthus' (1798) so-called preventive check...

In the present paper we advance a theory of pre-industrial growth where body size and population size are endogenously determined. Despite the fact that parents invest in both child quantity and productivity enhancing child quality, a take-off does not occur due to a key "physiological check":...

This note extends the theory of optimal aging and death (Dalgaard and Strulik, 2010) towards uncertain death. Specifically, it is assumed that at any age the probability to survive depends on the number of health deficits accumulated. It is shown that the results in Dalgaard and Strulik (2011)...

This study presents a novel view on education and health behavior of individuals constrained by aging bodies. The aging process, i.e. the accumulation of health deficits over time, is built on recent insights from gerontology. The loss of body functionality, which eventually leads to death, can...

This paper proposes a theory for the social evolution of obesity. It considers a society, in which individuals experience utility from consumption of food and non-food, the state of their health, and the evaluation of their appearance by others. The theory explains why, ceteris paribus, poor...